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Christmas Cracker: Crocs and NukesThere has been plenty of bad news about nuclear power recently (e.g. see my last but one blog), but in the seasonal spirit of ‘good will to all’, here is something a little bit more positive- and lighthearted!
The UK is planning to get around 8% of its electricity from nuclear plants at some point after 2020- and around 30% from renewables. It might be argued that, instead of trying to compete with renewables, coal and gas in the electricity market, which may prove hard, perhaps nuclear ought to look to other markets.
Top of the range options include the production of hydrogen, and possibly other synfuels, that could be used in vehicles- that is a high added value product. I looked at some of the emerging ideas for hydrogen and synfuel production in an earlier post. http://environmentalresearchweb.org/blog/2009/09/nuclear-or-solar-hydrogen.html
The US Department of Energy’s new ‘Next Generation Nuclear programme’, with up to $40 million on offer for an initial planning phase, is now looking at the idea of extending the application of nuclear energy ‘into the broader industrial and transportation sectors’. But high temperature reactors of the type being explored are still some way off- work on South Africa’s Pebble Bed Modular Reactor was recently halted due to financial constraints.
Less speculatively, you don’t need new technology: conventional nuclear plants, like all steam raising power stations, produce a lot of waste heat. There has been much talk recently of using some of this for local heat networks - linked to nuclear ‘Combined Heat and Power’ plants. Some plants in Russia already do this, as I noted in an earlier post. http://environmentalresearchweb.org/blog/2009/07/pipe-dreams.html Selling heat as well as power can improve their economics.
Heat from the turbines at nuclear plants is already quite widely used for other purposes. For example the 5400 MW nuclear plant at Gravelines, near Dunkirk, feeds waste heat to a Sea Bass farm, which evidently produces around half of all worlds’ farmed sea bass. And the existing Olkiluoto nuclear power station in western Finland, provides heat for growing Latvian zilga grapes in a nearby vineyard. Even more exotically, there is a large tourist crocodile farm at Civeaux in Provence, fed with heat from a nearby nuclear plant. I’m sure there are other examples.
Perhaps more practically, nuclear plants have been used for the desalination of sea- water. For example, in Japan, I’m told, ten desalination facilities linked to pressurised water reactors operating for electricity production have yielded 1000-3000 cubic metres/day each of potable water, and over 100 reactor-years of experience have accrued, while Pakistan plans a desalination plant coupled to its KANUPP reactor near Karachi. Morocco is also, it seems, planning nuclear-powered desalination, as is China (at Yantai, producing 160,000 cu m /day, using a 200 MW reactor). And S. Korea and Argentina have each developed small PWR-type reactors designed for cogeneration of electricity and potable water.
Mind you, renewables can also do this. The various Concentrated Solar Power plants being built of planned in North Africa can desalinate sea-water. And in Texas, Renew Blue’s wave-powered ‘Sea Dog’ water pump device is near completion, on a platform in the Gulf of Mexico. It will desalinate sea-water. Some could then be sold in bottles, rather than Perrier and the like.
I know the risks of contamination with nuclear material are miniscule, but somehow, personally, I’d prefer my water to be kept well away from radioactivity. So, if I needed bottled water, I’d prefer Renew Blues’ offering. But then some spa waters are very mildly radioactive, which was once claimed to be part of their curative value. And, it might be a bit of a stretch, but these days the nuclear industry sometimes argues that low levels of radiation aren’t that dangerous: http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/RSRadiationrisksquestioned0312092.html
On balance though, I think I will stick to beer. Happy Xmas drinking, whatever your choice!
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